ExposedNYC

My second example of bad luck this week came from Callie. When she called with news of a boy story with actual hope in her voice I was overjoyed! For the past few months she had been sliding down a slope of cynicism towards the pool of hopelessness waiting below and I worried that once she reached it she may never be able to get her head above water again. Romantic optimism is as precious and necessary to the world of dating as the air we breathe.

Callie has been researching grad schools and noticed an attractive guy sitting in the row behind her at a recent orientation session. When they had a chance to break she made a point to get into a group with him and ask him some questions (I’ve always admired her ambition- I know whole books have been written about that idea of business sense applied to life). They got along obviously enough that when they headed back to their seats the person seated next to him noticed and offered to move so they could continue the conversation- a nice validation that the flirtation isn’t all in your head.

Later in the session she ran into a friend she went to undergrad with and quickly began to spill details, until she noticed an odd look on the girl’s face. “Oh my god, I’m officially oblivious,” Callie moaned as she recounted the story to me. “He was standing in the aisle behind me, waiting to talk to me, and I was just sitting there babbling away. For a girl who constantly complains that I never get approached, how many other guys have I completely ignored because I didn’t notice or expect them to be standing there?” she cried despairingly.

“So, did you get his number?” I asked impatiently, dying for my most marriage-hopeful friend to at least start down the road towards the street that holds that aisle down the center of a church. It may be a long way off, but at least she would be crawling in the right direction. She assured me that they had exchanged business cards (a grown-up ritual that I have yet to embrace) and would both be attending an information session for another college the following weekend.

“Oooh, let’s look him up on My Space,” she exclaimed suddenly. I threw open my laptop so I could play along as she typed his name into the search engine. You have to love how easy they’ve made cyber-stalking.

“No, he’s not sixty-five. No, he doesn’t live in Texas…” she said as she scanned the results.

“You have his email, right,” I suggested. Try searching that.”

“Oh, you’re brilliant!” she replied. “This is why I call you for this stuff.”

Within seconds she had found his picture and begun reading while I asked her to spell the URL. Before I could even begin to evaluate this guy based on the creativity of his headline and choice of profile picture, I was interrupted by a long sigh releasing any last bit of hope Callie had left. “He has a girlfriend,” she said flatly. “And that’s got to be her in his top friends.” She immediately navigated to the unexpected other woman’s page. “And her interests include theater, arts, and entrepeneurship so I can’t even hate her.”

“No wonder he seemed nervous,” she said. “It wasn’t because he was interested, but because he’s involved and some girl barged her way into sitting next to him… But, at least this saves me from making an ass of myself and inviting him for a drink when I see him next weekend.” I could hear her struggling to keep her head above water, gasping for breaths of hope.

“Exactly,” I replied, and as some virtual water wings I tossed out, “Who knows, maybe he has cute Ivy League friends he could introduce you to?” She reluctantly agreed and then cut the conversation off to catch up with her TiVo. Although we hung up the phone decidedly less giddy than we had begun, I was confident that I wouldn’t have to worry about my friend drowning in loneliness.

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